The Oregon Community and Capacity Building Grant, part of the Oregon Lands and People Project led by the Coalition of Oregon Land Trusts (COLT), the Land Trust Alliance, and Oregon Community Foundation, offers $520,000 in Year One grants to strengthen Oregon land trusts. The program prioritizes two areas: building partnerships with communities and strengthening internal organizational capacity.

Grantees serve as trailblazers documenting how investing in people, relationships, and systems leads to long-term conservation impact. The broader initiative aims to raise $12 million over five years through three strategies: Breakthrough Funding to secure long-term state conservation funding, Community and Capacity Building grants, and Land Capital to fund shovel-ready conservation projects.

OCF has also committed $3 million to Craft3's Conservation Bridge Fund for short-term land trust financing.

Oregon Lands and People Project - Coalition of Oregon Land Trusts A partnership between Coalition of Oregon Land Trusts, Land Trust Alliance, and Oregon Community Foundation Oregon’s lands and communities are at a pivotal moment. Climate‑driven species loss and ecosystem erosion are accelerating just as federal conservation funds are drying up, narrowing the window to protect our forests, farms, deserts, wetlands, coasts, and rivers.

But Oregonians are ready: a recent poll reveals that 90 % feel a moral responsibility to protect our natural heritage. Meanwhile 70% of Oregonians support an increase to existing state funding for natural resources. Oregon Lands and People is a bold effort to strengthen land trusts, expand the communities that they serve, and equip them with the tools and resources to protect Oregon’s most vital lands and waters before it’s too late.

Our Shared Vision for Oregon's Future A Shared Vision for Oregon's Future By 2030, Oregon’s conservation community will have the capacity, resources, and partnerships they need to protect and steward the lands and waters essential to Oregon’s people, fish, and wildlife.

With substantially more public investment, stronger philanthropic support, and a broader coalition, our coalition will: Help Oregonians protect, restore and enjoy nature, regardless of who or where they are. Help natural resource-based communities across the state secure sustainable economic futures. Scale up nature’s potential to store carbon and build resilience to climate change.

Redefine conservation by centering equity and community, including advancing Indigenous land access through efforts like the Oregon Land Justice Project. The choices we make today will determine the future of Oregon’s lands and people.

Learn more about the Collective work of Oregon Land Trusts The Coalition of Oregon Land Trusts (COLT), the Land Trust Alliance , and Oregon Community Foundation (OCF) are collaborating to raise $12 million over the next five years. This goal is our best estimate of what’s needed, balanced against what we believe prospective funders can support. To date, we’ve raised $2.

1 million and have a strong team of conservation fundraisers helping to manage a promising list of donors. The decade-long Oregon Advancing Conservation Excellence (ACE) program ended in 2022, having provided over $7. 8 million through 246 grants to Oregon land trusts and COLT.

The remarkable growth of Oregon’s land trust community (e.g., 69 new and upgraded staff), combined with a deepening commitment to community-based conservation, was just one result of this historic investment by philanthropist John Gray. This sustained, thoughtful approach to capacity building also helped COLT grow into one of the strongest and most effective state associations in the nation.

It also helped the Oregon Land Justice Program emerge as a national leader in land trusts’ long overdue movement toward supporting Indigenous rights, Tribal sovereignty, and land relationship and return. The success of ACE also established COLT, the Alliance, and Oregon’s land trusts as credible partners to address climate resilience at a large scale.

Working closely with Oregon Community Foundation, Doris Duke Foundation, and two additional philanthropic partners, the Alliance launched the Pacific Northwest Resilient Landscapes Initiative in 2019. This effort distributed an additional $1M in capacity grants and over $5M in land capital to land trusts in Oregon, Idaho and Washington.

Buoyed by these successes, COLT, OCF, the Alliance, and many Oregon land trust leaders asked themselves, “what do Oregon land trusts need now – and what can they accomplish? ” This simple question led to the series of 2023-2024 listening sessions around the state. COLT and the Alliance convened land trusts, five Oregon Tribes, donors, and partners to shape the future of land conservation in Oregon.

What they heard was an appeal for a multifaceted program reflecting how the world has changed over the past decade—and with it, Oregon’s land trusts. Across the state, land trusts are changing their sense of who they serve and how they do their work. Specifically, they’ve developed closer partnerships with Tribes, “frontline” communities, local governments, and community-based organizations addressing related issues.

Oregon’s land trusts see new opportunities to address broad environmental and social challenges. They have a major role to play in fostering climate resilience, making communities healthier, more livable, and more prosperous, and advancing justice more broadly. They have benefited from and contributed to a necessary breaking down of the silos that for too long separated “the environment” from “people.

” Over the past six months, with the assistance and fresh perspectives of a new Pacific Northwest Program Manager at the Alliance and a new Executive Director at COLT, we’ve worked to distill these desired investments into three mutually supportive implementation strategies.

To advance land justice and conservation across Oregon, we are activating three interconnected strategies: Breakthrough Funding, Community and Capacity Building, and Land Capital. Together, these efforts aim to secure long-term public funding, strengthen the people and partnerships behind the work, and mobilize the capital needed to protect land in alignment with community values.

Breakthrough Funding Strategy We are leading a multi-year effort to secure long-term state funding for land and water conservation across Oregon – an initiative designed to elevate the importance of conservation, align public and private investments, and build lasting infrastructure to support this work.

We aim to dramatically increase, long term sustainable state funding for natural resources generally and land conservation in particular.

This effort will expand the tools and funding streams available to land trusts, while also partnering with a broad coalition—including Tribes, conservation organizations, hunting and fishing advocates, recreation organizations, agricultural leaders, and others focused on Oregon’s natural resources—to shape a compelling, intersectional vision for public investment in nature.

Our strategy centers on building strong and sustained support for conservation among state and local leaders. COLT is working to assemble a new Oregon Lands and People Coalition to allow for better coordination, information sharing and opportunities for joint advocacy among existing and new allies from all relevant conservation, climate and civic sectors.

By spending time in deep relationship-building across the natural resource and civic landscape, we will identify shared challenges and craft solutions that reflect the interconnected needs of Oregon’s people, lands, and waters. This approach positions the land trust community as a key leader in shaping Oregon’s conservation future – through both policy change and coalition power.

As COLT approaches a potential ballot measure, having a broad, deep coalition of support will only enhance chances for success. Josh Alpert is leading this coalition-building effort ahead of a potential funding measure. COLT will seek your engagement in this effort by, among other things, asking about your current and potential projects, your capital needs, and your relationships with decision makers and community leaders.

COLT will also seek your participation in events and activities designed to showcase your work and its potential to address broad community needs, consonant with polling and the coalition-building effort. This effort will take several years at minimum and will require significant focus. Success is not assured.

But we believe the time is right for a renewed push for Oregon to get serious about funding conservation. And we believe this time, land trusts are poised to lead. Community & Capacity Building Grant Program The Alliance is administering a $520,000 grant program in Year One.

Future grant rounds, as funds are secured, will be evaluated on an on-going basis to expand and support the broader needs of the Project and the land trust community. The program will be highly adaptive and responsive to the needs of the Project as it evolves and additional funding is secured.

In Year One, the grant program will prioritize two key areas: building strong partnerships with communities and strengthening the internal capacity of land trusts. Selected organizations will not only receive funding but will also serve as trailblazers for the Oregon Lands and People Project.

Their work will help us document real-world examples of how investing in people, relationships, and internal systems – rather than just one-off land transactions – can lead to long-term, mission-aligned impact. Grantees will help define what success looks like when land trusts deepen community trust, improve staff and board capacity, and embed equity in their day-to-day operations.

Private Philanthropy for Land Capital The Alliance, COLT, and OCF are building a portfolio of shovel-ready land conservation projects to attract private philanthropy and advocate for greater capital investments. Their first statewide call yielded $400,000 in grants to three land trusts and partners, with the aim to expand this pool over the next five years.

To complement these grants, OCF has joined forces with the community‑development lender Craft3, committing a seven‑year, $3 million investment from OCF’s Oregon Impact Fund to expand Craft3’s revolving Conservation Bridge Fund. This infusion strengthens the flexible loan program that helps land trusts cover short‑term financing gaps.

Craft3, OCF, and other regional foundations will continue coordinating to ensure the fund remains a responsive financing tool for land‑trust partners statewide. Participate in our capacity building efforts by applying for grants, attending our trainings and engaging in our cohorts.

Elevate and Expand Your Impact Develop and help us showcase the projects through which you’re deepening your engagement with your community, broadening your focus across sectors, issues, and constituencies, and scaling up work across your landscape.

Engage with our emerging campaign to broaden the coalition of partners by educating potential new allies across many different sectors Want to learn more about how to get involved or have any other questions about the project? Contact COLT Philanthropic Project Manager Glenn Lamb at 360-606-6071 or email glenn@oregonlandtrusts. org .

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